Exodus, the Christian-based organization that boasts great success in
converting sinning homosexuals into winning heterosexuals, recently
trotted out John and Anne Paulk as the poster children for their
organization.

John Paulk: Self-proclaimed "Ex-Gay"

Both Paulk and his wife Anne, a self-declared "former lesbian," claim
that by finding God, they have successfully made the transition from gay
to straight. On the surface, John Paulk appears to be a natural choice for
this attention. He is vice-chair of Exodus and works in the legislative
and cultural affairs department of James Dobson's organization, Focus on
the Family.

To me, though, he will always be the college student who in 1983
lived across the courtyard in an apartment complex next to the main campus
of Ohio State University in Columbus.

Seeing where John Paulk has landed himself today comes as no surprise
to me. John always craved to be the center of everyone's attention in
life's theatrical production, so it's no shock that he is still at home in
the limelight.

Paulk and his wife, Anne, also a self-proclaimed "Ex-Gay," on the cover of Newsweek

But I must admit that I was a little shocked to have his
image and story not only featured in those full-page newspaper ads touting
groups like Exodus and others that claim to "cure" homosexuals, but also
prominently featured in the July 28 editions of Time and Newsweek.
For years, the stories of John and his exploits have been the stuff
of which legends are made and reminisced over.

Our apartments, with their
porches and balconies facing one another, overlooked a grassy courtyard.
My proximity to John made phone calls unnecessary--we were constantly
calling to one another about making dinner, bar-hopping or shopping plans.
In the warm fall evenings of 1983, I studied my history texts on my front
porch as John practiced his vocal scales on his porch.

As summer changed to fall and the evenings changed from humid to
crisp, then downright cold, I found John's behavior becoming increasingly
odd, even reckless. There were nights when John would leave to go out,
dressed smartly in a sport coat and pressed slacks, and wait for his date
to pick him up. He would return early the next morning in the clothes that
he left in the night before.

That October, I discovered that John's dates weren't "dates," but
rather "business" meetings. The All-American Quarter Horse Association was
in town for its annual convention, bringing with it thousand of lonesome
cowboys. John had been working for Dulcet Escort Services, a business that
worked quite hard at making those cowboys a little less lonesome. (They've
since been shut down by the vice squad.)

The night I found out about John's activities he was working the
phones for the service from his house. I sat there fascinated as he would
answer the phone and rattle off the menu of services offered to any
wrangler looking for a bronco to buck.

"We offer escort services, conversation, nude modeling and nude
conversation," John informed the caller. (Nude conversation?) Then there
was my introduction to the operator of the escort service, a woman named
Joanne who took great pleasure in telling me that she had been "run out of
Manhattan" by people with organized crime connections. That was a bit much
for this corn- fed Ohio boy, and eventually I began to withdraw from the
friendship.

By the middle of that winter, the local department store began to
visit John's heat-less apartment. Furniture delivered that summer was
removed. Friends began to open their homes to John so he could have a hot
shower or a warm meal. He lived huddled in an electric blanket. He dropped
out of school. He owed money.

The summer of 1984 was difficult, even hostile. The calls across the
courtyard had stopped months before as John's behavior became too erratic
for me to deal with. He began performing as a drag queen to make money,
and his alter ego "Candi" soon began to take over the apartment where John
once lived. The balcony shared by my neighbor and myself would fill
nightly for the show on John's balcony.

In a reverse striptease, he
metamorphasized from John Paulk into his alter ego Candi for all to see.
By that fall, our time as neighbors was over. John vacated the
apartment and began to perform at a club called the Ruby Slipper. As the
seasons passed, those of us from the courtyard days would touch base with
one another and report any "Candi sightings."

John's life truly became burlesque-like when he began doing the talk
show circuit as a "reformed homosexual." None of us was too surprised.
When a pendulum swings so far in one direction, it's bound to swing the
opposite direction with equal abandon.

All these years later, I seriously doubt that John was saved so much
from homosexuality as he was saved from himself. Being gay doesn't cause
you to become a prostitute. Circumstances and low self-esteem do.

Having
the utilities turned off and your furniture repossessed isn't caused by
being a homosexual either, it's caused by not honoring your obligations.
Being a homosexual also doesn't cause dishonesty or create suspicion
either. These are character issues that affect all people, regardless of
their sexual orientation.

A life spent making all the wrong choices is a life spent in poor
judgement, not in the gay world as Exodus desperately wants people to
believe. People who seek attention will do anything to be center-stage,
even if it means tearing themselves up, tearing themselves apart, and then
destroying themselves in order to re-create themselves.

John's issues were, and I believe continue to be, those of integrity.
During the time that I knew John, the truth was always something that was
treated as an afterthought. He regularly mistreated himself as well as
those who cared about him. Because of this, I will always mistrust him,
his actions and deeds, including his very public salvation.

This mistrust is only deepened when I read about his much-publicized
life story. Nowhere in that history do I see where he acknowledges that
people in and out of the gay community tried to help John. Nowhere in
these life testimonies do I see where John takes responsibility for
anything that he did to himself and others while he was intoxicated with
his path of self destruction.

If the Christian right wing sleeps better at night safe in the
comfort that people like John Paulk are there to defend their ideals and
promote the "Exodus cure," then I would advise them to start sleeping with
one eye open. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. I
predict that John Paulk will yet recreate himself again when this folly,
like the ones before, runs its course.

John Paulk may claim that finding Jesus and Exodus helped him find
his heterosexuality, but he has yet to convince me that he has found
himself.
Stuart Koblentz and his memories live in Columbus.